Recommended by Ricardo Soltero-Brown

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    For as long as I've been reading her work, Beckett Flynn has been carrying the mantle of late-20th century conurban queer writers, a school that needs more love; blunt, eloquent, transgressive, but more centered on the humanity, connection, confusion, and complexities of its characters than anything else. Set in what may be a movie theater chain, but feels like the house from VARIETY (1983) or lobby from NIGHTSHIFT (1981), this kinetic short reads like Quentin Tarantino woke up as Naomi Wallace.

    For as long as I've been reading her work, Beckett Flynn has been carrying the mantle of late-20th century conurban queer writers, a school that needs more love; blunt, eloquent, transgressive, but more centered on the humanity, connection, confusion, and complexities of its characters than anything else. Set in what may be a movie theater chain, but feels like the house from VARIETY (1983) or lobby from NIGHTSHIFT (1981), this kinetic short reads like Quentin Tarantino woke up as Naomi Wallace.

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    The patients and staff of a St. Roch Hospital ward, already anxious and stressed by severe personal and professional conditions, find themselves well over the edge after the arrival of COVID-19, with everyone going far beyond the common limits of compassion, courtesy, decency, decorum, empathy, sanity, truth, and understanding. Depicting the apocalyptic attitudes and brutal behaviors so prevalent during the pandemic, Ian Donley's EMERGENCY ROOM is a sardonic portrait of human nature in extremis.

    The patients and staff of a St. Roch Hospital ward, already anxious and stressed by severe personal and professional conditions, find themselves well over the edge after the arrival of COVID-19, with everyone going far beyond the common limits of compassion, courtesy, decency, decorum, empathy, sanity, truth, and understanding. Depicting the apocalyptic attitudes and brutal behaviors so prevalent during the pandemic, Ian Donley's EMERGENCY ROOM is a sardonic portrait of human nature in extremis.

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    August Strindberg, Michael Ondaatje or Jane Campion levels of toughness, style, psychology, intelligence, emotional wallop, and behavioral bizarreness. Devastating possibilities.

    August Strindberg, Michael Ondaatje or Jane Campion levels of toughness, style, psychology, intelligence, emotional wallop, and behavioral bizarreness. Devastating possibilities.

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    Smart and clever short on lustful limerence, gender roles/stereotypes, and authenticity.

    Smart and clever short on lustful limerence, gender roles/stereotypes, and authenticity.

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    The number 26 and the search for cig butts are really good choices, dramatically, as an opportunity for actors to repeat a key phrase, and for characterization/physicality (their search). This human scene seemed to me like a mix of Don DeLillo's "The Mystery at the Middle of Ordinary Life" and a more homespun, (anti-?)romantic Tom Waits song if he were from the midwest or lived in the tundra. The kind of drama one would like to see John Cassavetes direct and act with Gena Rowlands or Peter Falk.

    The number 26 and the search for cig butts are really good choices, dramatically, as an opportunity for actors to repeat a key phrase, and for characterization/physicality (their search). This human scene seemed to me like a mix of Don DeLillo's "The Mystery at the Middle of Ordinary Life" and a more homespun, (anti-?)romantic Tom Waits song if he were from the midwest or lived in the tundra. The kind of drama one would like to see John Cassavetes direct and act with Gena Rowlands or Peter Falk.

  • Ricardo Soltero-Brown: The Place That Made You by Darcy Parker Bruce
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    Darcy Parker Bruce portrays a small town - itself the belly of a whale - that is being haunted by death; not even a ghost has peace here. Jonah is a mess and, like many thirty year olds, doesn't understand why he is where he is, and so drinks for both the bonding and drowning experience. If only everyone would commit to what - or who - was best for them. Instead, bonds of friendship breakdown into a cogency for connection, into the hunt for home; this primal force is tested across the planes of time, space, and dreamed dimensions.

    Darcy Parker Bruce portrays a small town - itself the belly of a whale - that is being haunted by death; not even a ghost has peace here. Jonah is a mess and, like many thirty year olds, doesn't understand why he is where he is, and so drinks for both the bonding and drowning experience. If only everyone would commit to what - or who - was best for them. Instead, bonds of friendship breakdown into a cogency for connection, into the hunt for home; this primal force is tested across the planes of time, space, and dreamed dimensions.

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  • Ricardo Soltero-Brown: What To Do When You're Suicidal But You Can't Fight Fascists When You're Dead by Natalie Valentine
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    One of the most accomplished, accessible purges I’ve read; clearly and purely putting into words, dramatic and poetic, the pain and anxiety many feel about the current state of events. It is a shame that not everyone feels, or fights, this fear. The dependency on technology, the desperation for common ground, if not commonality, or shared perspective. This play reaches the fever of our times, the dense-ness or dense mess of manic depression, of a living, systematic, cyclical insanity. It is a reaction to hate that never should have been, but here we are. Add Valentine to your poets.

    One of the most accomplished, accessible purges I’ve read; clearly and purely putting into words, dramatic and poetic, the pain and anxiety many feel about the current state of events. It is a shame that not everyone feels, or fights, this fear. The dependency on technology, the desperation for common ground, if not commonality, or shared perspective. This play reaches the fever of our times, the dense-ness or dense mess of manic depression, of a living, systematic, cyclical insanity. It is a reaction to hate that never should have been, but here we are. Add Valentine to your poets.

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  • Ricardo Soltero-Brown: FLOATING ON CREDIT by Aja Houston
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    One of the most deft political satires that I've read in a long time. It will no doubt serve as a devastating component in any evening of sketches, a standout piece in any charged revue. The exchange is tense, engaging, clinical, bewildering, brutal, awful, awe-full, abrasive, subversive, layered, straightforward, liberating, and liberated. Exemplary, truly; a bravura work of art.

    One of the most deft political satires that I've read in a long time. It will no doubt serve as a devastating component in any evening of sketches, a standout piece in any charged revue. The exchange is tense, engaging, clinical, bewildering, brutal, awful, awe-full, abrasive, subversive, layered, straightforward, liberating, and liberated. Exemplary, truly; a bravura work of art.

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